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Get Off My Lawn: 40 winks and a nod will open our eyes Sunday May 6, 2018 at 2:01 AM By Robert GalvinMail Tribune We all have our Sunday routines … and right off the bat I’ll tell you that I prefer “Sunday routines” to “Sunday rituals” because it sounds worse — like, “wait until your father gets home” worse — when you break a ritual, as I am likely to do any particular Sunday. One routine that I follow ritualistically, however, is the Sunday afternoon nap. In truth, I might be asleep this very moment. (If you keep reading this piece, you might be asleep soon yourself.) But now I’ve come to find that I’ve been doing it all wrong. While several recent studies have found that naps do regenerate the system (they had to study that? ... really?), it’s the length of the nap you take that determines how much you gain from nodding off. One recent study cited by WebMD.com claims that a “sleep episode as short as six minutes was enough to significantly boost memory performance.” Six minutes. I don’t know how you go about napping ... because, if I did, that would be just creepy ... but when I head off for my “sleep episode” this afternoon I’ll have to: decide whether to change into my pajamas, figure out the best configuration for my pillows, turn down the quilt, turn off the lights, pull down a shade, decide on which side I’ll try to get started and — after completely having solving those questions — get back up to answer the call of nature. And I’m not going through all of that for six minutes of lying awake, wondering if anyone out there was falling asleep while reading this Sunday stream of subconsciousness. I get my napping gene honestly — it came to me from my father, along with a creaky back and a love of liver and onions. He’d commandeer the couch for so long on a Sunday that he’d wake up in the dark, wondering whether it was night or early morning. Honestly, it could have been either. He’d only know for sure if he were jostled awake by my mother, telling him it was time to go to bed. No one woke up Rip Van Winkle, of course, who rested in peace for 20 years — after which he awoke to find he’d grown a foot-long beard … even though his finger- and toenails were the same length they’d been before that bowling team sent him off to slumber. Things didn’t wind up so good for Rip the Elder. Life had gone on without him — a war fought, loved ones lost — and he would end up just as idle and addled as he’d been before he headed into the mountains for a respite with his dog. Dorothy Gale wandered away with her little dog, too — although her nap was caused by a tornado. Still, while she was busy counting z’s, she had the misfortune of trusting her fate to the ministrations of a self-described humbug — a big-headed blusterer who surrounds himself with Deed Doers in a palace at the end of streets paved with gold … all set safely behind a wall intended to keep out illegal aliens such as Dorothy, who only wants a home. And don’t dare to be the sort of ungrateful creature that would presume to criticize the great and powerful Oz … … whose love of the under-educated leads him to tell one mindless traveler that “where I come from, we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have”; … and who appreciates the wisdom of the beast who runs away from the fight … because what good is a hero who is captured; … and who says of the mechanical man that he “is in luck not to have a heart,” because a heart “makes most people unhappy.” Of course, when the curtain is pulled away and the great and powerful leader is revealed to be just another snake-oil salesman, he’s carried away by his supply of hot air — leaving everyone, including Dorothy, to fend for themselves. Luckily (in her case, at least), it’s all just been a bad dream. That Dorothy remembers the details falls in line with another recent nap study (Do scientists all decide to research the same topics at the same time, or is it like if one jumps off the Tallahatchie Bridge, the others follow?) which showed that our brains are susceptible to “remembering” things that didn’t occur. This would seem to be problematic, given that yet a different study discovered that nappers are better at retaining information than non-nappers. Seriously, what good is it to retain information if that information might never have happened? Solving that conundrum sounds like it will take a clear head and, since a recent survey found that 51 percent of Americans find time to sleep on the job, I best get to work. If you did fall asleep reading this, send notes of appreciation to Mail Tribune senior designer Robert Galvin at [email protected].